Andrew Douglas: Monnette, we’re going to look at the changes under psychological hazard legislation for workers’ compensation in New South Wales. Pretty scary. Only about 50% of people return from psychological hazard compared to 95% physical. I’m taking the words away from you, aren’t I?

Monnette Samo: That’s okay.

Andrew Douglas: But I think the changes that we’re talking about are really quite, whoops, I’m getting very excited with the teleprompter. We’ve moved on. So the changes really do this. They say to try and reduce the number of psychological claims, and I care were billions of dollars in debt and never managed the legislation the way it should have been done. So there really is no need, just like there was no need in Victoria if it was managed properly. But what they’ve done is they’ve said, look, there must be a relevant event that caused the injury. And the relevant event is actually very, very limited. So it’s not stressor, it’s not personal relationships.

It has to be workload, it has to be bullying, harassment, court decisions that relate to it. They’re all very high threshold, very serious matters. So the types of things, even in Victoria, which would permit a psychological claim, have been excised. Secondly, there must be a direct relationship to it. And it must be the major reason for the injury that has occurred. So it’s really taken away the nature of what are the events that can lead to it and dramatically reduced it. And it’s gone away from being causally related to direct cause. So it has to be a predominant cause. Pretty scary, you know, because I think the example I gave with Monnette earlier, which was probably an unfair one, but Monnette allowed me to use her as guinea pig.

Monnette Samo: Go ahead.

Andrew Douglas: I’m afraid for that is. Just say Monnette’s going through incredibly difficult times in life. She comes in, I’m irritable, I’m grumpy, and I shout at her. She’s embarrassed. She runs out. She feels difficult to come back to work. Did I actually cause this? A little bit did, yeah, ’cause it was a threshold issue. But if we’re going to get into arguments about how much things caused, the four or five difficult things happening in Monnette’s life, arguably, maybe significantly more causative of her vulnerability. Mine just pushed her over the edge. Is that really where we want regulators and courts going? Trying to say, oh, when you’re breaking up with your husband, that’s worth 50%.

When your child was very sick, that’s worth 20%. Oh, so it’s not direct. It’s not the reasonable court. What a load of horseshit. But anyway, that’s where we’re going with New South Wales. And like Victoria, which has gone from over a 95% acceptance rate in claims, dramatically under 50%. We’re now getting to a stage where we’ll see a dramatic drop in the acceptance of claims in New South Wales. I might say that reasonable management action has gone up. And so reasonable management action as a defense is now much easier to raise, ’cause they’ve got to show it is actually the management action that caused it. What absolute nonsense. Anyway, that’s New South Wales, was always going to be nonsense legislation.

Monnette Samo: There we go.

Andrew Douglas: Why don’t we get onto the case study and I’ll let you read and we’ll go from there. You ready to go?

Monnette Samo: Yeah, let’s go ahead. So Nick was worn out. He was a conscientious worker and he had worked with Ernie for many years. Ernie had a chip on his shoulder. He struggled with change and found Nick’s manner difficult. Nick was a serious person. He worked hard, cared for his family, including his ageing parents, and was a committed dad. He did something every day to help his family succeed and cope. Lately things had been tough for Nick. His son had been unwell and needed a specialist care.

His wife had become sad and withdrawn as a result of their son’s difficulties. And Nick had just found out that his mother had cancer. His mother was his closest relationship. Nick was taking short periods of personal leave to attend medical appointments and support his family. In between, he worked hard, but Ernie started to complain to others that he was carrying Nick. But in truth, Nick had carried Ernie for many years and was still covering for Ernie’s underperformance even while working reduced hours.

Their supervisor, Candice, was aware of the work imbalance. Nick handled all the complex work, often staying back to complete it, as well as managing the work hygiene issues that Ernie neglected. Candice knew Nick had felt overwhelmed even before the issues at home arose, and she did her best to support him. At the beginning of the first week in December, Candice told the team, including Nick and Ernie, that they would need to set up a new tooling for the cardboard printing line the following day while still meeting production targets.

The box line was running across all three shifts for the Christmas food rush, and there could be no downtime between the usual retooling. Nick reminded Candice that he would be at his son’s school that morning until 10:00 AM, following a hospital visit. Ernie sniggered and said, “What’s your next excuse for dodging work?” Nick had heard all the gossip Ernie had been spreading, and his resilience was very low due to the pressure his family was under. Nick turned to Ernie and snapped, “Shut the F up, you lazy loser.” He then started to walk away. Ernie grabbed Nick’s jumper, leaned into his face, and shouted, “You want to make something of it?” Nick was furious. He started at Ernie and muttered, “Yeah, right now, let’s do it,” and began to square up, when Candice intervened.

Andrew Douglas: All right, we’re onto the questions. All right, interesting case study. Now, the first question really is, did Nick engage in serious misconduct? And if so, could he be summarily terminated? So the answer is, we’ve heard the case. There is no doubt a valid reason for the termination of Nick at this stage. He was aggressive, he was vulgar, he was threatening, he was provocative, okay? All valid reason. But the truth is, A, he was provoked, and B, he was a reliable, good worker of good character who had massive things happening in his life. So the answer is no, it’s not serious misconduct, and he couldn’t be terminated. He should get a final warning. Absolutely. I think the next question goes to our mate, Ernie.

How would you characterize Ernie’s conduct given that he knew about the family issues Nick was facing? Was his conduct serious misconduct? I think Ernie’s closer to the serious misconduct than Nick was. Very provocative, grabbing a jumper, threatening. The difficulty is that you have to deal in comparative levels. You can’t really give a final warning to Nick and then go and terminate Ernie. But Ernie should know that what he did probably was serious misconduct, and it’s right on the edge of summary termination. But he’d get a final warning as well. What do we got next? What’s my next interesting question? ‘Cause I drafted this. Nick left the plant stressed and unable to cope.

Would he have a successful workers’ compensation claim? It is a lay-down misery that he has a successful work, because it’s not his conduct that measures it, it’s the stresses that were running at the time. And there’s no doubt that conflict and aggression are a proper basis, Victoria, New South Wales, or anywhere for a successful claim. Were there any psychological hazards present? Well, we can see them, can’t we? We can see conflict, we can see workload. We can see-

Monnette Samo: Very high.

Andrew Douglas: External stresses that are on them. So we can see lots of them, okay? But interesting to do that analysis, ’cause that tells us how we should deal with the workers’ compensation risk. It shows what we should do with the employment risk. Monnette, what a pleasure it is catching up. It’s our first one back.

Monnette Samo: As always. That’s it.

Andrew Douglas: Thank you so much for your hard work.

Monnette Samo: One of many.

Andrew Douglas: And we’ll see you next week. Cheers.

Monnette Samo: All right, see ya.